In today's society, credit cards and debit cards are used for making payments far more frequently than cash. Card payments can be faster and easier than cash payments, for both the purchaser and the vendor. But the convenience of card payments can deceive cardholders who are not fully aware of their current financial situation. Most cardholders typically have, at best, only a high level understanding of their account balances when making new purchases. As a result, cardholders may not have the cash necessary to pay the card balances after accruing multiple blind purchases. Thus, many people find themselves incurring significant debt through blind usage of their credit cards, or by incurring overdraft charges or otherwise depleting their debit card balances too quickly.
Those who monitor their financial situations periodically check balances or request alerts from their financial service provider when debt thresholds are surpassed. Due to the rise of smart phones and Internet-connected devices, individuals can also check account balances on-the-go. But current systems typically require people to login to their smart phone, navigate to a website or application, login in to the website/application, and then navigate through one or more web pages to their balance information. Even after performing this cumbersome process, many systems and applications still require the user to perform mental calculations to estimate account information. These systems are impractical to use while checking out in a point-of-sale transaction, such as in line at a store. Consequentially, many people forego checking their accounts and remain unaware of their current financial status while spending money.
In view of the shortcomings of current systems, a convenient and reliable way to retrieve and display financial account information is desired.